Archives for December 2008

“In wisdom gathered over time I have found that every experience is a form of exploration.”
(Ansel Adams)

 

The 12 days of Christmas have now come and gone, and while most folks spent them hunting for stuff to put into boxes, I instead followed my plan to get out of my box as much as possible and have to say now that the figurative stretching felt really good.  Under an unusual blessing of deep snow that the more stereotypical cold Christmas Eve rains could not bring to a full surrender of a rare and true White Christmas, I found it both pleasingly challenging and somewhat frustrating to try to capture the holiday spirit.  Not only the technical challenges of shooting at night when the artic blast that overstayed its welcome like a bad guest caused everything to freeze within moments, but simply finding suitable subjects was hard; likely due to the horrible economic conditions there were far fewer displays of the seasonal revelry than in years past. 

But I think I managed to “make do” well enough.  My first attempt was to head out for a short walk in the bitter evening air to tackle a polar bear, one of a pair that graces the front steps of a house in the front of the Woods:

 

The next day the big, bad, wicked winter storm arrived in earnest and travel, even on foot, was a treacherous and foolhardy idea.  But I was lucky enough to snag the elusive adult Cooper’s hawk right in our own backyard:

 

A brief lull in the storm the next night allowed for a quick trip out to tackle one of the sights that was, in large part, the inspiration for my little project:

 

I ended up going back the next evening in order to catch all the lights turned on.  By this time, the single-digit temperature and a wind chill that pushed that temperature down into double negative digits required serious bundling up for the short walk.  It was a hoot, for it had been years since I’d ventured out resembling one of the kids on Southpark.  As an adult, even when out skiing in -20° weather my winter attire was more, shall we say, fashionably streamlined.  (The difference being, of course, your blood circulates a lot faster to keep you warm when you’re moving, unlike the stillness required to take photographs.  This also put a new pair of Really Serious winter boots on my list.) 

 

We awoke the next morning to be greeted by some much-welcome sunshine.  The morning light was thrilling, energizing and brilliant but the wicked wind continued to blow fiercely, warning everyone to stay put.  So it was only brief forrays into the backyard for me.  And for the wild residents.  I found my littlest wild fox squirrel friend waiting patiently for me to arrive with her foodstuffs, trying her best to bravely soak in some of the sunshine as the driving wind beat at her with drifting snow:

 

The starlings have returned en masse and while their lack of manners at the feeders is the bane of my existence, they are beautiful birds and so one high up in the pine tree gulping snow became my daily photo:

 

As hard as I try to avoid going out during the last, frenzied holiday shopping days, errands could not be postponed forever, so I took full advantage of the early darkness for some daily shoots, using the partially-opened window of the Jeep as a makeshift tripod.  It is testament to why I so love my Wrangler that the engine runs so smoothly I could keep it on and therefore stay warm while shooting:

 

On Christmas Eve morn the frigid arctic front finally started to move on and the more normal Michigan holiday season rains finally began.  The red-tailed hawk had been making daily appearances and, after having to be content with mostly stick-picking, to my surprise it glided into the trees in our backyard and actually stayed put for a while.  I had to don a rain poncho and cover Matilda, but even so, by the time I finished the shoot, I was as sodden as the hawk with jeans wet nearly to my knees from standing and then jumping around in the snow.  (I’ll leave it to your imagination and likely one of Bob’s blogs to picture my attempts to encourage the hawk to move on when the squirrels and I had finally had our fill of its menacing presence.)

 

On Christmas Day I prepared a delectable herb-crusted pork roast, Bob cleaned while I set a festive holiday table then picked up my mother, and the three of us happily ate our Selves into a very merry little stupor.  After I took my mother home I stopped to take the last daily photograph on my list, as I’d planned it:

 

And so at last came the Morning After and The End:

 

Now that these self-made “12 Days” are over, I look back and am very glad I set a goal with this project.  I feel as if I’ve accomplished something more with my photography, and certainly there has been learning with each day’s attempts.  Learning that will be put to good use in the days ahead.

Merry, indeed.

“Christmas time is here, by golly!
Disapproval would be folly.
Deck the halls with hunks of holly;
Brother, here we go again.”
(Tom Lehrer)

 

  
It often seems like the holidays become just another thing that must be multi-tasked and crossed off the never-ending to-do list.  But no matter how you celebrate the start of “officiellement l’hiver”, I believe it’s important to take a moment to remember why we haul out the lights and eat and drink our Selves into a stupor of merriment.

There’s a silly joke about true friends being the ones who bail you out of jail, or sit beside you laughing about how much fun was had getting there.  Though I understand and appreciate the humor and the sentiment behind it, such jesting at Christmas often sets off the echoes of a melancholy chord inside of me and I realize something.

Jail is not only a physical place, but it is also the chains we put around our hearts to shut out others. There is nothing worse than being exiled from the love of another person for it is a truth that the opposite of Love is not hate, but indifference. To be ignored, to be left alone, to be forgotten – this is perhaps our deepest fear.

Rudolph may have gone down in history, but it was because of his brightness that shone clearly through the winter’s darkness. Ok, so it was only his nose, but that shiny red nose is yet another small reminder that within ALL of us lie the seeds of the very same Light that was born in humble poverty yet grew to shine forth an eternal truth that has not dimmed even to this day. (Crooked politicians, lawyers, and most CEOs aside, of course.)

The message of this season has always been one of hope, and inherently contained within that hope is the wish for peace. The return of the Sun/Son, that which is crucial to our very survival, both physical and at the level of the heart, has always been a time of celebration. A time of recognition that when all is said and done, in the very deepest place inside every one of us we are all the same. No matter how you choose to see and express it, we are all Children of God and to return to the Light is to return to that innocence, that wonder, that joy of simply being.

“For unto us a child is born.”  Each year the wheel turns, and as the world continues to lay in sin and with error pining it reaches these Halcyon days; in particular the one day awaited with a never-ending, collective thrill of hope for Him to appear.

Him.

A child. A child sleeping in the night.

From within our self-made jails, from within those chains of fear we hope.

From within our self-made jails, from within those chains of fear we pray.

But that child is you. That child is me. With breaking of each new and glorious dawn of every Christmas Day the birth we celebrate is our own, for hope and its inner core of peace is not something that lives outside of us, it is who we are.

My wish for each and every one of you is that not only today, but every single day, you find within you the Light of Love we now celebrate and that it shine from you onto others as brightly as the star that guided those three, oh-so-wise men to kneel at the feet of He who would manifest all our potentials in one single, short lifetime.

Each one of you is a gift. A beautiful gift of hope whom angels greet with anthem sweet, the babe, the Sun…the peace. 

May you have a joyous, peace-filled holiday.

“Oh, the weather outside is frightful,
But the fire is so delightful.
And since we’ve no place to go,
Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow.”
(Sammy Cahn, Jules Styne, 1945)

  

Today we celebrate the return of the Sun, that ancient ritual acknowledging that no matter how bleak and dismal it may seem, the darkness will always give way to the light.  It is a good thing to remember, this; particularly during these dreadful times where all things mundane are concerned.

As if in repudiation of these annual days of shortest daylight, our world is blanketed with a thick coat of clean, white snow.  A bit unusual, but its reflective quality a welcome banishment of the otherwise utter blackness of the long, unrelenting nights.  All illumination comes with a price, however, and we awoke to more falling snow, falling temperatures and high winds that will push those temperatures into the danger zone.  It is definitely a day to hole up, whether you are man or beast or bird.

Knowing that staying home was going to be a likely and very wise choice, we decided to take advantage of the lull between storms and go on a little drive last night.  Recent changes at work have finally given me reason to go to our downtown Detroit offices and while driving there and back the juxtapositions of holiday lights and the combination of old and new architecture had caught my eye and so were penciled in on my little photography project list. 

We simply headed down Woodward Avenue, one of the main arteries into the city and a thoroughfare of great historic and cultural significance; not the least of which is that its mile-long stretch between Six and Seven Mile Roads was the first road in the world to be paved with concrete almost 100 years ago.  As in any big city, there are places where plywood and graffiti cover the decaying ruins of neglect and poverty like so many dirty bandages but there are now more places where tender claim has been laid and life breathed back.  Particularly as one reaches the downtown proper. 

Woodward Avenue ends at the riverfront, where you can look south and see our northern neighbors in Canada; and as you turn onto Jefferson Avenue you come face-to-face with what was once the hope and pride of the downtown’s revitalization.  The wistfully-named Renaissance Center, conceived by Henry Ford II is now the headquarters of General Motors, and the 5.5 million square foot complex still boasts the tallest all-hotel skyscraper in the Western hemisphere, the 73-story Marriott. 

  

We turned around and headed back north again on Woodward, this time with the intention of shooting.  Most of the road had been admirably cleared of Friday’s heavy snowfall, but a few places remained just nasty.  The steam grates lent a properly urban atmosphere, though shooting through the windshield isn’t exactly the best way to go.

  

The picture I’d had in mind was best shot taken just south of Comerica Park so we pulled in there.  This rather overwhelming ballpark that tries to give nod to both the old and modern eras of baseball sadly replaced the much-beloved and historic Tiger Stadium in 2000 though, ironically, Comerica paid for 30-years of naming rights then moved its headquarters to Dallas, Texas shortly thereafter.  The enormous tiger sculptures are wonderful and whimsical (note the Carhart jacket on the main one); what tickles me most of all are the decorative lights – glowing baseballs held in the mouths of fierce tiger heads mounted along the exterior walls.

 

 

Directly across the street is the Fox Theater, originally built in 1928 and one of the first movie palaces to feature live sound.  It is now Detroit’s main venue for Broadway productions.

 

But it was St. John’s Episcopal Church that was my reason for this cold little adventure.  The oldest church still standing along Woodward Avenue, it was dedicated in 1858 and this marvelous example of Victorian Gothic construction of rubble limestone, trimmed with Kelly Island sandstone, has survived both expansion (the original chapel was too small from the start and so immediately reconstructed in 1861; the chancel was enlarged in 1892 to accommodate the organ console and choir and the original chapel taken down and moved 10 feet east) and relocation (the entire church was moved 60 feet backwards when Woodward Avenue was expanded in 1936).  It is a tiny, almost surreal breathing space of peaceful beauty and historic grace amidst the commercial frenzy.

   

I think it was well worth braving the cold darkness.